Born Free and WCRS make a splash with incredible interactive campaign for World Orca Day

To mark World Orca Day on July 14, visitors to Westfield Stratford in London and other major cities across the country will have the chance to help “release” captive orcas back into the wild.

Former model and television star Lady Victoria Hervey is among the ambassadors set to support #TankFree, created in aid of the international wildlife charity, the Born Free Foundation.

Stunning, life-size animations of orcas will be displayed on five large digital screens which CGI and creative advertising experts have adapted to replicate the concrete tanks in which captive orcas are forced to live.

#TankFree is created by the multi-award winning creative agency WCRS, and one of London’s leading visual effects companies The Mill. The digital screens have been donated by UK media owner Ocean Outdoor.

Celebrated actress and Born Free Co-Founder Virginia McKenna OBE said:“There are currently 62 orcas in the world which are forced to live in cramped conditions and perform unnatural tricks at marine parks and aquariums. This highly visual, dynamic appeal, created for us by WCRS and Ocean, will help in our mission to end the practice of keeping cetaceans in captivity.”

Steve Hawthorne, creative director at WCRS, said: “Sometimes the most powerful way to get a problem across to people is simply to show it to them in a way that’s hard to ignore. Creating life sized orcas, in digital screens the same size as the tanks that many orcas are kept in, allowed us to do just that.”

Over the course of World Orca Day, supporters will be invited to help “free” captive orcas from their virtual tanks by texting a donation to Born Free.

Each £5 donation received causes a captive orca to “jump” out of the screen and swim across other nearby digital posters to freedom. Its escape triggers the arrival of another captive orca, which swims into its virtual tank, triggering further donations.

Visitors can also help raise awareness of the plight of captive orcas by taking a selfie in front of one of the digital displays and tweeting using #TankFree.

The campaign will appear on the Four Dials digital outdoor screen at London’s Westfield Stratford and on four other high profile locations owned by Ocean Outdoor in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow.

Those unable to get to one of the sites on the July 14, can follow events on Twitter using #TankFree. They can also pledge to never visit a dolphin arum at: www.bornfree.org.uk/tankfree'